Big Sam: My Autobiography by Sam Allardyce

Author:Sam Allardyce [Allardyce, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2015-10-19T23:00:00+00:00

13

ENGLAND AND SWEET FA

I certainly never expected to be in with a chance of getting the England job.

In January 2006, the FA announced that England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson would be leaving after the summer’s World Cup finals. I didn’t take too much notice, after all the FA would surely go out there and get another foreigner. But it became apparent over the next couple of months that they were considering English candidates. In fact, they were positively encouraging them to throw their hats into the ring.

There were some articles appearing that suggested I might be the right man for the job, but I wasn’t falling for those. Yet the longer I thought about it, the more I felt I should get it. There was also a man I knew who could give me the inside track, Phil Gartside, who was on the FA board. But would he support me, or try to undermine me? Phil reported to Eddie Davies, so would Ed take kindly to Phil trying to get me the England job? ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you, Sam,’ said Phil in a manner which didn’t infuse me with confidence. He had promised me after the Newcastle approach that if a big job came up he would let me go, but I wasn’t convinced. His first loyalty was to Eddie, and if Ed wanted me to stay there was no way the chairman would push my case with the FA. I spent a lot of time telling Phil it would be an honour for a Bolton manager to get the England job, but was he listening or was it just going over his head?

Lynne was torn. The profile which went with being England manager, and the fact she and the rest of the family would be in the public eye, scared her. But she wasn’t going to stop me.

‘This is the chance of a lifetime. I’ve got to go for it,’ I told her. ‘It’s bigger than a club, with better players than I have ever worked with.’

From then on she was totally supportive. So when Phil allowed the FA chief executive Brian Barwick to ring and ask if we could have an informal chat, it became serious. Brian and his legal man, Simon Johnson, met me at a house in Whitefield just off the M62. It was a farcical start because the electronic gates refused to open. I had to drive around waiting for the all clear to go in because the FA didn’t want me standing outside, so paranoid were they that anyone would see us. It was supposed to be a big secret who they were talking to, even though the press revealed the shortlist was me, Martin O’Neill, Alan Curbishley and Steve McClaren. Now Martin didn’t qualify as an Englishman, but the general view seemed to be that although he came from Northern Ireland, he’d been in the Premier League so long he was home grown.

Over our chat, Brian said that if I

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.